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The deal is that when you join ROTC, the military agrees to pay a certain amount of your your college costs (depending on scholarship, could be most of it), and in return, you agree to a certain number of years of service.

Even if OP did really want to be in the Air Force, having an obligation washed away like that with no penalty sounds like a pretty good deal.

ROTC paid him for some amount of college without him ever needing to join.

The key word being voluntarily.

If they really wanted to join for the sake of joining they weren't going to be forced out. Otherwise you get free college (worth up to 200K in the US) for a small amount of weekly training. That's an insanely good deal.